PT Announces New Residency Program

The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) Orthopedic Physical Therapy (PT) Residency Program in collaboration with The Johns Hopkins University is now officially credentialed by the American Physical Therapy Association.

“We are grateful to our clinical partners of the Johns Hopkins Hospital,” said Joyce Maring, DPT, Ed.D., chair of the department physical therapy and health care sciences at SMHS.  “But I wanted to especially acknowledge the hard work, inspiration, and leadership of Jennifer Halvaksz that were all critical factors contributing to this positive outcome."

Assistant Professor Jennifer Halvaksz, DPT, OCS, serves as the academic director of the orthopedic residency program. “Credentialing of the residency marks another step that GW's PT program has taken to lead in our profession,” she said. "In partnership with Johns Hopkins Hospital we are providing excellent physical therapy residency experiences that foster clinical practice and develop leaders in our profession.”

One of the main goals of the department is to develop clinical specialists in orthopedic physical therapy. This objective has been the inspiration for the development of this new post-graduate residency program in the department; the orthopedic PT residency program, which has existed in partnership with Johns Hopkins University since 2012.

In addition to developing clinical specialists, “we’re trying to help these residents develop as clinician educators,” Halvaksz says. This, in turn, allows for the perpetuation of excellence throughout the profession. “The more highly qualified clinical instructors we have, the better quality student we can put into the marketplace